Derby Notes: July 2011

MRDA Announces New Staff, Teams, Rankings - Since making themselves the Men’s Roller Derby Assocation a few months ago, the national sanctioning body for men’s amateur flat-track roller derby has been extra-busy.

First off, MRDA has released a list of national team rankings, based off of the results of games played during Spring Roll in May. Unlike WFTDA, which has over 100 sanctioned leagues separated into four different regions, since MRDA only has 14 sanctioned leagues they can only list their rankings on the national scale. The final rankings for 2011 will be released in September, andthe top six ranked teams at that time will move on to play in the first-ever MRDA Championships in October.

Of those 14 leagues, three are brand new, having gained MRDA sanctioning within the past week:

As of June 1, the MRDA is accepting new requests for league membership. Interested parties can view the MRDA membership requirements here.

In addition, MRDA has announced its Executive Board of Directors. The new president of MRDA is Erich Bennar (Dr. Spankenstein, Pioneer Valley) and the new vice president, Scott Meyer (Magnum P.I.M.P., St. Louis). Four other positions have been filled, with two outstanding. The board’s first orders of business will include new member registration and membership information, league marketing, and finalizing policy for game and tournament sanctioning.

Derby News Network Starts 2011 Fund Drive – Love roller derby? Got a few extra bucks lying around? Head on over to DNN’s 2011 Spring Fund Drive page and give them the dollars they need to make it possible to bring roller derby coverage to the masses over the Internet. Every little bit helps, and if you give them more than a little bit, you’ll get some nice swag in return. What are you waiting for? DO IT.

WRDN Game of the Month

(4) Denver at (11) Texas

Remember the Denver Roller Dolls? You know, that really good roller derby team in Denver that isn’t the WFTDA Champion Rocky Mountain Rollergirls? You may have forgotten about them, especially since they failed to qualify for the championship tournament last year after getting upset in the first round of the 2010 Western WFTDA Regional.

While Rocky Mountain is consistently awesome, their citymates are sporadically so; although Denver beat Rose City in early May, they almost didn’t after nearly blowing a 100+ point halftime lead. And though Denver is one of the five best teams in the country, they still got doubled-up against the new #1 team during Oly’s Colorado swing this time last month.

Texas, meanwhile, has been thickening their skin this season. After getting their required regional games out of the way, they’ve taken on all comers from all parts of the country. Just consider their recent schedule: Philly, Charm City, Rose City, Rat City, Oly. They only got one win out of that stretch (and just barely—162-156 over a depleted Charm roster), but considering that their only real threat in the South Central region is a resurgent Kansas City team, they’ll be needing all of the experience against top teams they can get.

So what’s going to happen in this match-up? Denver is a good team, but has shown that they can turn it off just as well as they can turn it on. Texas is building up an attitude of wanting to bring it against any team, although recent results show that they can’t hang with teams that are ranked higher than they are. But much as I like to say on this blog, Texas is still Texas. I’m not sure if they have what it takes to beat Denver, but I have a feeling this game will be interesting, regardless.

Texas vs. Denver will take place on July 19 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.

Upcoming Events and Top-25 Action

Now that the WFTDA second quarter rankings period is over, games played from now until the end of the year will have no affect on which teams will be going to the WFTDA regional tournaments, which start in September. As a result, there are a lot fewer games between top-ranked teams this month. Still, some teams are still looking to ramp up to The Big Five. Charm City in particular will have a busy month, with two of their three games this month against Colorado’s finest.

Additionally, now that the MRDA has started to officially sanction games between men’s teams, I will start listing any and all games in the MRDA schedule. (Since there are only 14 MRDA teams, that technically makes all of them Top-25 teams, doesn’t it? ) These will be featured in a separate section under the schedule of Top-25 WFTDA teams.

WFTDA

July 8

Houston at (21) Boston

July 9

(24) Arch Rival at Chicago Outfit

Dallas at (8) Kansas City

(10) Windy City at (21) Boston

(12) Charm City at (4) Denver

July 10

(11) Charm City at (3) Rocky Mountain

(10) Windy City vs. Houston (at Boston)

July 16

Chicago Outfit at (17) Steel City

(15) Minnesota at (25) Nashville

Grand Raggity at (24) Arch Rival

(4) Denver at (11) Texas

July 17

(15) Minnesota at Demolition City

July 23

Jet City at (12) Charm City

July 31

(14) Montreal at (11) Texas

MRDA

July 2

Your Mom vs. (4) Puget Sound (at Slaughter County)

July 9

(7) Twin Cities vs. (10) Race City (at Circle City)

(9) Connecticut vs. (2) New York (at Suburbia)

July 10

(9) Connecticut at (8) Harm City

The Rankings

Note about rankings: Numbers in parenthesis indicate the WFTDA regional ranking (E1) or DNN Top-25 ranking (3) for that team. For the WFTDA regional rankings, a team not ranked in the DNN Top-25 is marked as (NR). Unofficial DNN national Power Rankings are updated monthly and official MRDA national rankings will be next updated September 2011.

WFTDA Q2 rankings (the rankings that determine end-of-year playoff seeding) will be released later this month. Until then, the Q1 rankings will still be listed below.